The Buenos Aires Quintet

About the book

When Pepe Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his son, Ra?l, in Buenos Aires, Pepe is reluctant. All he knows about Argentina is 'tango, Maradona, and the disappeared' and he has no desire to find out more. But family is family and soon Carvalho is in Buenos Aires, getting more caught up in Argentina's troubled past than is good for anybody. As he gets nearer to finding Raul, he begins to realise the full impact of the traumas caused by a military junta who went so far as to kidnap the children of the political activists they tortured. A few excellent tangos, bottles of Mendoza Cabernet Sauvignon and a sexy semiotician are no compensation for the savage brutality Carvalho experiences in his attempt to come to grips with Argentina's recent history.

About the author

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán was born in Barcelona in 1939. He was a journalist, novelist and creator of Pepe Carvalho, a fast-living, gourmet private detective. Montalbán won both the Raymond Chandler Prize and the French Grand Prix of Detective Fiction for his thrillers, which are translated into all major languages. He died in October 2003.

Reviews

Montalban is a writer who is caustic about the powerful and tender towards the oppressed

- Times Literary Supplement

An inventive and sexy writer. Warmly recommended.

- Irish Independent

This is nothing less than world-class crime fiction

- Big Issue

The most metaphysical gumshoe on the streets - the plot is as concerned with exploring capitalism's malignancy as it is with corpses and femmes fatales